Chéng Yí 程頤
Style name Zhèngshū 正叔; conventionally Master Yīchuān 伊川先生 from his late residence at Yīchuān 伊川 (modern Hénán). Native of Hénánfǔ 河南府 (modern Luòyáng). Lifedates 1033–1107 (Northern Sòng). Younger brother of Chéng Hào 程顥 (1032–1085); together the Èr Chéng 二程 (“Two Chéngs”) and joint founders of the Luòxué 洛學 (“Luòyáng Learning”) school of Northern-Sòng Dàoxué. One of the canonical Běi Sòng wǔzǐ 北宋五子 (“Five Masters of the Northern Sòng”) together with Zhōu Dūnyí 周敦頤, Shào Yōng 邵雍, Zhāng Zài 張載, and Chéng Hào.
Studied at the Imperial Academy in his youth under Hú Yuán 胡瑗 (胡瑗) — the substantive transmission line that Sòng yìlǐ on the Yì (visible in the KR1a0016 Yīchuān Yìzhuàn) inherits. Together with his elder brother briefly studied with Zhōu Dūnyí 周敦頤 in adolescence, but the magnitude of Zhōu’s influence on the brothers is the subject of the Sòngshǐ Dàoxué zhuàn’s standard genealogy and is questioned by twentieth-century scholarship.
Did not pass the jìnshì. Held a long succession of court appointments under Shénzōng and Zhézōng; rose to Chóngzhèng diàn shuō shū 崇政殿說書 (“Imperial Lecturer at the Chóngzhèng Hall,” in 1086) under the Yuányòu 元祐 conservative regency of Empress Dowager Gāo. With Zhézōng’s accession and the post-1093 anti-Yuán-yòu reaction (Shàoshèng 紹聖, Yuánfú 元符), demoted, exiled to Fúzhōu 涪州 (modern Fúlíng 涪陵 in Sìchuān) in 1097, transferred to Xiázhōu 峽州 in 1100, rehabilitated under Huīzōng’s accession but barred from court. Spent his last years in retirement at Hénán teaching a circle of disciples (Yáng Shí 楊時, Yóu Zuò 游酢, Xiè Liángzuǒ 謝良佐, Lǚ Dàlín 呂大臨 呂大臨, Zhāng Yì 張繹, Yǐn Tūn 尹焞). The Sòngshǐ Dàoxué zhuàn (juan 427) gives him a substantial biography.
His foundational doctrines:
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The principle-of-pattern doctrine. Lǐ 理 (“pattern” / “principle”) as the underlying metaphysical structure of all things; “xìng jí lǐ” 性即理 (“nature is principle”); the interpretive program of analyzing canonical texts and ethical-political situations through lǐ-investigation (qióng lǐ 窮理).
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The “investigation of things” and “extension of knowledge” reading of the Dà xué. Gé wù zhì zhī 格物致知 read as an epistemological programme of investigating the lǐ of things in the world and integrating that investigation into a coherent ethical-self-formation — the line later canonized by Zhū Xī in his Sì shū 四書 chapter-and-verse.
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The doctrine of “preserving sincerity-and-respect” as inner cultivation. Jū jìng qióng lǐ 居敬窮理 (“dwelling in respect, exhausting principle”) as the joint inner-and-outer cultivation programme.
His surviving works are collected in the Èr Chéng quánshū 二程全書 (modern critical edition: Èr Chéng jí 二程集, Zhōnghuá shūjú 1981, rev. 2004). The principal individual works:
- [[KR1a0016|Yīchuān Yìzhuàn]] 伊川易傳 — the four-juan Yì commentary, composed during the Fúzhōu exile (1097–1099); the foundational document of Sòng yìlǐ Yì-reading and one of the most influential commentaries in the entire Confucian classical tradition.
- Chūnqiū zhuàn 春秋傳 — Chūnqiū commentary, partially completed.
- Yǔlù 語錄 — recorded sayings and dialogues compiled by his disciples; the principal source for his philosophy.
- Wénjí 文集 — collected memorials, letters, prefaces, inscriptions.
His intellectual transmission is the architecture of SòngMíng Dàoxué: through Yáng Shí to Lǐ Tóng 李侗 to Zhū Xī, with parallel transmission through Xiè Liángzuǒ to the Hú-school of Hú Hóng 胡宏 and Hú Yīnxiān 胡寅. Zhū Xī’s eventual canonical synthesis is in important respects a ChéngYíLǐTóng inheritance.